National Wrestling Hall of Fame honors Pat Miletich with first MMA award

The National Wrestling Hall of Fame Dan Gable Museum, amateur wrestling’s preeminent institution, is honoring notable Pat Miletich with its first MMA-specific award.

The Iowa-based hall of fame is honoring the former UFC champ with its first George Tragos Award.

It’s given to a competitive wrestler who “adapted his wrestling skills and competitive nature to excel in” MMA, according to the announcement.

“Pat Miletich is the perfect person to receive this inaugural award because of his diverse accomplishments,” Kyle Klingman, director of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame Dan Gable Museum, stated. “Pat’s name was at the top of everyone’s list to receive this award because he embodies wrestling through mixed martial arts and, most importantly, through training others to be successful.”

Miletich will be honored at the George Tragos/Lou Thesz Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame induction weekend from July 22-23 in Waterloo.

Tragos was an accomplished submission wrestler during the 1920s and 1930s. He wrestled and threw discus for the Greek Olympic team in 1924. Tragos also was an AAU freestyle champion in 1919. He worked to revitalize the University of Missouri wrestling program in 1944. The program since has produced MMA notables such as Bellator champ Ben Askren, Bellator tourney winner Michael Chandler and Strikeforce contender Tyron Woodley.

While the wrestling community was slow to embrace the MMA movement, Gable, an Olympic gold medalist who coached the University of Iowa to 15 NCAA national championships, has helped the two coexist peacefully.

“I give him a lot of credit for the development of mixed martial arts,” Gable stated about Miletich. “He is one of the guys who had the foresight to believe that [MMA] could be a thriving entity. When I think of MMA, I think of Pat Miletich. He was a wrestler from Iowa who continues to push and believe in wrestling.”

Miletich, a lifelong wrestling enthusiast who competed for Bettendorf High School, posted a 29-7-2 MMA record record during a 13-year pro career. A UFC 16 tournament winner and first-ever UFC welterweight champ, he made four successful title defenses, a record ultimately topped by Matt Hughes.

Miletich, the 43-year-old founder of the famed Miletich Fighting Systems, also coached a team in the IFL, currently broadcasts shows for Strikeforce on Showtime, and is the subject of the book “Blood in the Cage” by “Sports Illustrated” writer L. Jon Wertheim. He closed out his fighting career in 2008 with a second-round TKO of Thomas Denny at Adrenaline MMA 2.

(A special thanks to Maggie Hendricks of Yahoo! Sports for assisting with this story.)